VenatoRx Pharmaceuticals to Present Orally Bioavailable Broad-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase Inhibitor for Superbugs at ACS National Meeting

March 25, 2019 Off By BusinessWire

First Time Disclosure of Clinical Candidates Presentation Scheduled
for April 3, 2019 at 10:35am ET

MALVERN, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–lt;a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/antibiotics?src=hash" target="_blank"gt;#antibioticslt;/agt;–VenatoRx
Pharmaceuticals
announced that its President and CEO, Christopher
J. Burns, Ph.D.
, will present during the First Time Disclosure of
Clinical Candidates at the American Chemical Society (ACS) National
Meeting. The presentation entitled, “Discovery
of VNRX-7145: A broad-spectrum orally bioavailable beta-lactamase
inhibitor (BLI) for highly resistant bacterial infections (“superbugs”)

is scheduled for Wednesday, April 3, 2019 at 10:35am ET in the Valencia
Ballroom A at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.

VNRX-7145 is a novel, orally-bioavailable BLI that is currently in
clinical development. VNRX-7145, in combination with a known orally
bioavailable cephalosporin, rescues the activity of the partner
antibiotic against ESBLs and key carbapenem-resistant
Enterobacteriaceae, including those expressing KPC and OXA
carbapenemases. This presentation will explore the medicinal chemistry
optimization to VNRX-7145 from less active, non-bioavailable lead
compounds.

This project has been funded in part with Federal funds from the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National
Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under
Contract No. HHSN272201600029C.

About VenatoRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

VenatoRx is a private pharmaceutical company that is focused on the
discovery and development of novel anti-infectives to treat
multi-drug-resistant bacterial infections and hard-to-treat viral
infections. Founded in 2010, VenatoRx has built a world-class in-house
R&D organization that has filed over 100 patents spanning multiple
research programs. VenatoRx has received significant funding awards from
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), Wellcome Trust, CARB-X, and the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) as well as private equity
investments from Versant Ventures, Abingworth, and Foresite Capital.

The Company’s most advanced development-stage product is VNRX-5133, an
injectable beta-lactamase inhibitor (BLI) that features selective and
potent in vitro activity against both serine- and
metallo-beta-lactamases, including OXA, KPC, NDM, and VIM. VenatoRx
believes that VNRX-5133, in a fixed combination with the fourth
generation cephalosporin, cefepime, has the potential to provide a
valuable broad-spectrum treatment option to meet unmet medical need in
patients with infections due to carbapenem-resistant pathogens including
carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) and carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas
aeruginosa
(CRPA), suspected polymicrobial infections caused by both
gram-negative and gram-positive susceptible pathogens, and engineerable
MDR bioterror pathogens such as Burkholderia spp. and Salmonella
spp. Early clinical studies of cefepime/VNRX-5133 have been completed
and VenatoRx intends to initiate Phase 3 pivotal trials during the
second quarter 2019.

VenatoRx’s second development-stage product in clinical development is
VNRX-7145, which is an orally bioavailable BLI that in combination with
a known orally-bioavailable cephalosporin, rescues the activity of the
partner antibiotic against ESBLs and key carbapenem-resistant
Enterobacteriaceae, including those expressing KPC and OXA
carbapenemases. Additionally, VenatoRx has a broad pipeline of
preclinical programs including a novel class of Penicillin-Binding
Protein (PBP) inhibitors that are impervious to beta-lactamase-driven
resistance, and novel antiviral agents targeting Hepatitis B Virus. For
more information, please visit www.venatorx.com.

Contacts

Heather Hunter
Vice President, Communications
VenatoRx
Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
[email protected]
610.644.8935
x8327